FPS Question.

Siege · Post by **Siege** » Thu Aug 09, 2012 1:05 am

Okay with my new computer I'm getting a respectable 100 fps while playing this game which is amazing considering my old rate of 15 fps. But when I turn on the Mining beam it drops 40 points.

Basically... What up with that?

This also happens to a lesser degree with firing.

Post by **Vice** » Thu Aug 09, 2012 1:12 am

Could be that your CPU is having a bit of a struggle with the added calcs involved with the mining beam system and weapon firing whereas you have a strong 3D card which is helping provide solid raw rendering performance. What kind of CPU is on your system?

Siege · Post by **Siege** » Thu Aug 09, 2012 1:35 am

Quad core i5

Post by **Vice** » Thu Aug 09, 2012 1:53 am

Not sure what it might be then that would cause such a change in FPS, what kind of 3D card are you running?

Siege · Post by **Siege** » Thu Aug 09, 2012 2:01 am

NVidia GeForce GT520.with about 2gig of memory which is pretty vague thanks to dxdiag lol

Post by **Vice** » Thu Aug 09, 2012 2:14 am

Do you see a similar slow down when you fly into planet rings? If so, that might point to some kind of rendering performance issue. If not, then I'd focus on the CPU side of things. Are you using any preset AA or AF settings, or are they all set to application preference?

Capt_Caveman · Post by **Capt_Caveman** » Thu Aug 09, 2012 7:20 pm

try enableing "max v-sync" in game options

Siege · Post by **Siege** » Fri Aug 10, 2012 7:08 am

Tried a planetary ring and it dropped me about 2 points if that. Will try that option. thanks

Malix · Post by **Malix** » Fri Aug 10, 2012 9:47 am

have you forced antialiasing from nvidia control panel?

Maybe too hard settings for your card? One setting which can really hit performance is the "Antialiasing - Transparency", it will kill the performance when there are particles / clouds / etc partially transparent surfaces (like the sparks from mining etc) going about.

Siege · Post by **Siege** » Fri Aug 10, 2012 10:03 am

It's odd, these options are off, I'm on Optimised VSync and I still get the decrease when the tractor beam is on or when I'm firing.

It's not such a huge decrease that I'm unhappy or anything but it is unexplained pretty much. I'd just like to understand, obviously if I can stop it even better, but mostly I just want to know why lol.

Malix · Post by **Malix** » Fri Aug 10, 2012 10:13 am

just a thought, is your computer a laptop? maybe it has "optimus", ie intel + nvidia -graphics combo. maybe the drivers identify the game wrong and use the intel chip to render the visuals?

Siege · Post by **Siege** » Fri Aug 10, 2012 10:30 am

Nope, it's a PC. With one graphics' card.

Post by **Marvin** » Fri Aug 10, 2012 3:24 pm

From post: 143058, Topic: tid=9705, author=Malix wrote:just a thought, is your computer a laptop? maybe it has "optimus", ie intel + nvidia -graphics combo. maybe the drivers identify the game wrong and use the intel chip to render the visuals?

What's "optimus" ...? I have that combination of laptop, nVidia and Intel but never heard of such an option.

Malix · Post by **Malix** » Fri Aug 10, 2012 8:40 pm

afaik optimus is the "whole thing", some laptops are marketed as having optimus graphics, ie desktop uses only intel graphics (low power, decent performance) and when playing games, the nvidia gpu kicks in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Optimus if you are interested, this is seriously derailing the whole thread

Post by **Marvin** » Fri Aug 10, 2012 9:07 pm

Sounds something like the four "Power 2 Go" settings I have ... which can be adjusted to taste.